Re “No progress on shutdown” (Page A2, Oct. 5): Despite the shutdown, members of Congress continue to receive their salaries, even as 800,000 federal employees were sent home without pay and 9 million at-risk mothers and children were threatened with going hungry as federal food assistance dries up. Perhaps it’s time to inform Congress, or at least its Tea Party members, that drawing a paycheck while curtailing government so as to protest a law Congress itself has already passed adds callousness to irresponsibility.